Metro Hawg Hunters July 31st tournament on Lake Minnetonka

The 4^th stop on the Metro Hawg Hunters schedule brought us to Lake Minnetonka on July 31^st.  The forecast was for highs in the mid-80’s with light winds.  My partner, Spencer, and I spent a considerable amount of time on the lake in the weeks leading up to the tournament and we found a good deep weedline bite that was getting better every day.  We also found a couple of mid-depth spots with decent milfoil growing on them that also were producing, but we spent the majority of our prefishing time dialing in the deep weedline pattern. 

We were boat 6 launching out of Halstead Bay and decided to fish the shallower milfoil spots right away in the morning to possibly turn a big fish right out of the gate.  After 45 minutes we only had one small keeper to show for our efforts.  Spencer and I are still scratching our heads as to where those fish went, but it was obvious that we needed to go to our deep fish to see if they would cooperate.  After a long run to the eastern part of the lake, we got to our first deep spot and started throwing jigworms and football head jigs around on a very deep weedline with a sand and gravel bottom.  On my second cast, I stuck a big fish on a jigworm that buried down in the coontail.  I was able to work the fish free and we got it into boat.  The short, fat fish looked to be around 4 pounds and we were hoping we fired up the school.  In the next 15 minutes we were able to fill out the rest of our limit with fish in the 2 to 2-1/2lb range.  After the bite cooled down on that spot we ran around fishing very small, specific hard bottom areas looking for bigger bites.  Depths ranged from 15 to 25 feet.  We caught numbers of fish on almost every stop, but those 3+ pounders were elusive.  Around 11:00 as the recreational boat traffic picked up considerably, I boated a 3-1/2 followed by another 4 pounder within a couple minutes of each other.  After another short move, Spencer boated a 3-1/4 pounder on a jigworm and all of the sudden our bag was pushing 17 pounds.  We had a 2.6lb bass in the well that needed to go.  Both Spencer and I hooked up with fish in the 3.5 to 4 pound range late in the day that got down in the grass and came off.  We felt like our inability to cull that smaller fish had cost us a chance at winning, but our 16lbs 14oz was enough to pull it out.  Our team also won big bass honors with a 3lb 14oz bass. 

Here is a list of our most productive baits:

·       1/8oz All-Terrain Mighty Jig with a 7” Berkley Power Worm (various colors)

·       3/4oz All-Terrain Football Head Jig (watermelon/red) with a 4” Berkley Chigger Craw (green pumpkin)

Our next tournament takes place on August 21^st on Washington/Stella near Dassel.  For updated results, standings, and information about our club, please visit our website at metrohawghunters.com.

Team Lahr (Brad and Spencer)